Free The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia Page A

other side of Merchant Square. There’s a jewelry shop downstairs.”
    “I know the place,” she said. “It’s owned by other . . . easterners? Like you?”
    Niobe smiled. “That’s right. Will you come?”
    As much as Mattie resented being treated like a thing that could be kept indoors at one’s whim, she thought that Niobe deserved another chance. After all, where else would she find someone as alone and mistrusted as herself? “Yes,” she said. “I will visit you. Maybe you can tell me about the alchemy you practice.”
    Niobe’s face brightened with a smile. “Yes! And promise you’ll do the same for me. The alchemists here seem awfully protective of their secrets.”
    “They don’t like outsiders.”
    Niobe raised her eyebrows. “Really? I haven’t noticed.”
    Mattie shrugged. “They did let you in, like they let me in. Believe me, this is the best either of us will be treated.”
    “Unless we change that,” Niobe said. “I’ll see you the next holiday.”
    Mattie headed down the embankment, unsure whether to go home or to visit Ilmarekh. She decided on the latter; it wasn’t just Beresta’s secrets or her elusive son, but Mattie worried about Ilmarekh, of how he withstood the assault of the ghosts inside him. She headed west, for the city gates.
    We mourn today as we will have mourned tomorrow, and we hide in the rain gutters and the attics, we smell dust and people’s cooking. At night, we huddle on the roofs, the shingles rough under our feet, our folded wings chafing against the bricks of the chimneys. Sometimes, the wind blows and brings with it the sound of quiet laughter and the smell of lilacs, the humid breath of the water lilies in the Grackle Pond and the stench of bleach from the factory.
    We are sad that we cannot smell cool stone, the dark moss pockmarking its surface, the rain and snow whipping its inert bulk and slowly, imperceptibly eroding it. And as we think of stone, we think of the things we haven’t thought about in ages—of how stone heaved and buckled and split, releasing us into the world; of how it followed us, like the night ocean follows the moon, how it bounded toward our hands, like a loyal dog to the beckoning of its master. When we were many, we could breathe a barest whisper, and it heard and obeyed, it listened. And now our voices are few and weak, and we cannot rebuild what has been ruined.

Chapter 6

    Mattie found Ilmarekh in his house on top of Ram’s Head Hill, and immediately saw that he was unwell. She cursed herself for not thinking to bring a tonic or a strengthening elixir.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked Ilmarekh who sat, wrapped in a blanket, by the roaring fire despite a warm, balmy day outside.
    He shivered in response. His teeth clattered so loudly that no words could come out.
    Mattie moved closer, stepping carefully around dirty dishes on the floor and an occasional bowl of ash. She touched his forehead, and her sensitive fingers registered no fever, just a film of clammy sweat covering his brow.
    It didn’t take Mattie long to recognize the symptoms of opium withdrawal—the alternating sweats and chills, the body aches, nausea, uncontrollable sneezing and watering eyes—she catalogued them in her mind and hurried back to her shop.
    There was little to be done about that but wait it out, but Mattie looked to diminishing the pain before cures. She thought of buying more opium but instead decided to use what few dried poppy flowers she had left—they would be enough to ease Ilmarekh’s suffering and let him sleep.
    She ran up the stairs, the light metal of her lower legs swinging over two steps at a time, and started her brewing. To opium, she added lemongrass against nausea, chamomile for a general calming, and vanilla to relax his knotted shoulders and let him sleep.
    She flew through her shop, mixing and grinding, measuring and distilling, filtering and decanting. A plain bottle would suffice , she said to herself. What does he